Wallace and Gromit: The wrath of the Fire Demon

Looks like another problem from which the world would be ridded by ace inventor Wallace and his faithful sidekick, who’s more intelligent than his master, in a forthcoming movie. But NO! This time our heroes were busy somewhere else gaining publicity and making box office history rather than saving their very own Aardman Animation Studios from a raging fire that engulfed the whole building along with all the past plasticine models of our heroes.

The fire raged through the warehouse of the building and destroyed items, models and sets as some of the 30 years worth of material which had been used in creator Nick Park’s Oscar –Winning short film series. The unfortunate incident took place at the time when the first full feature length film on the two characters shot to number one at the North American Box Office, becoming the presently most popular film.

"We have to look forward and keep filming new films and not get stuck in the past. I am always thinking up new Wallace and Gromit ideas and I always want to keep doing them. It's all just some kind of sentimental kind of nostalgic stuff, so in the context of world disasters at the moment, the way people are suffering, it's not any great deal, really.", Park said.

He also added that the sets from the new film were not damaged as they had been in an exhibition and not in the warehouse. Park learnt of the fire when he rang the production house Aardman Animations to find out how the film had coped it its first week in North America. "There was great news that it had risen to number one but at the same time the awful news that all the history, all the archives, sets and models had been lost in the fire," Park was reported to be saying.

He has won three Oscars for best animated short film, 'Creature Comforts' in 1990 and the Wallace and Gromit short films 'The Wrong Trousers' in 1993 and 'A Close Shave' in 1995. The new film sees Wallace and Gromit use a complex vacuum system to protect vegetables from a rabbit problem in their village. He also created the 2000 animation film 'Chicken Run'.

Wallace and Gromit may be relatively new stars in America. But gone are the first Wallace and Gromit figures used in the British film and TV show in which the stop-action technique was refined into an art form. The figures of Wallace and his sidekick dog, Gromit, have a long history in Britain. And now that history has gone up in smoke.

"These things were important and dear to us, wonderful in and of themselves," said Peter Lord of Aardman Animations. "Yes, they can't be replaced. The good news is that, you know, nobody was hurt."

Fire fighters battled flames 100 feet high on Monday morning at the warehouse storing memorabilia from all three films in Bristol, south-west England, but could not stop the roof collapsing. Investigators say the condition of the building deteriorated overnight, and they expect to be on site for days.